In this article, I engage with aesthetic experience as a central hermeneutic endeavour for theorising performing arts audiences in the Arab region. I argue that a critical engagement with Arab performing arts audiences’ aesthetic experiences necessitates both an archaeological manoeuver and a re-articulation of two keywords: ‘experience’ and ‘everyday’. The article advances, using evidence from research, that allowing the audiences of performing arts in the Arab region to speak may be a step towards democratising the triangular meaning making process among (...) the performer, the audience, and the art institution, and a means towards dislocating, if not liberating, the categories Arab culture, art, performance, and experience, from their teleological articulations. (shrink)

This article argues that neither the city nor the commodity is ultimately responsible for rubbish, but rather industrialization: rubbish is a consequence, an evil effect, of industrialization, which aims to produce anything but nature, which is considered rough and tough, and therefore needs to be refined out.

This article is based on the general introduction and the opening sections of chapters 1 and 2 from the author's book,Living in the Labyrinth of Technology. It revisits the process of industrialization as having a dual component: people changing technology and technology changing people. The latter is almost universally overlooked and provides a different perspective.

SummaryThe contrasting economic and technological histories of Japan, China, and India prior to 1914 are very often explained in socio-cultural terms. It is too easily assumed that culturally Japan was somehow more ‘prone’ to development along Western lines than were either of China and India. This paper addresses the socalled ‘failure’ of economic modernization in China and India in terms of socioeconomic processes and mechanisms. Knowledge and machinery were transferred to all three nations prior to 1914. But only in Japan (...) were conditions favourable to the subsequent adoption, diffusion, and adaptation of technologies. A major argument is that officialdom in China and India was not unwary or dissolute but merely hamstrung through a removal of effective sovereignty over decision making. The reduction of sovereignty was of greater importance than the supposed retardative impact of deeply held cultural traits. (shrink)

Despite the attention given to China’s rising importance in the international marketplace, I argue that corresponding attention has not been given to the sustainability dimensions—the social and environmental dimensions of this economic development trajectory. Specifically, what type of business strategy can and will best serve the economic, environmental, and social needs of China, and what role, if any, can the private sector play to facilitate the development of such a strategy? In exploring this question, I first examine the evolving relationship (...) between business and sustainable development. I then outline the sustainability challenge within the regional context in the Asia-Pacific region. Finally, I analyze sustainability challenges posed by China’s rise in the global economy and assess the impacts of these challenges on current and future business strategies. (shrink)

The United States' failed effort to impose an East Asian-style, export-led industrial development regime on the Dominican Republic in the aftermath of the 1965 “Dominican crisis” poses two related empirical puzzles. First, why did the Dominicans reject the widely praised and ultimately rather successful East Asian model? And, second, how did the Dominicans overrule their erstwhile North American overlords? I answer the first question by underscoring the incompatibility of export-led industrialization and the island nation’s prevailing system of patrimonial rule. (...) I answer the second question by illuminating the patrimonial regime's “asymmetrical” desire for independence. And I thereby suggest that the social and political underpinnings of successful export-led industrialization are decidedly more restrictive than the mainstream social science literature would have us believe. (shrink)

Les bris de machines constituent un type de violence récurrent en Angleterre et en France au début de l’ère industrielle. Ce type de violence contestataire a été peint essentiellement sous les traits d’une pratique masculine, impliquant le triomphe d’une conception virile des rapports sociaux et des conflits du travail. Loin d’être marginales ou invisibles, les femmes sont pourtant bien présentes dans ces conflits, à la fois comme auxiliaires des hommes mais aussi comme actrices de plein droit insurgées contre les machines (...) qui portent atteinte à la production domestique et à leur mode de vie. En examinant le genre des bris de machines, il s’agit à la fois de suivre comment les machines requalifient en termes sexués le travail, avec des différences importantes selon les secteurs et les régions, mais aussi comment interviennent les identités de genre dans le façonnement des protestations populaires au début de l’âge industriel. (shrink)

As a product of the tourism performing arts industry in culture–tourism integration development, to develop a featured culture–tourism town is a new trend for tourism development in the new era. To analyze the social benefit of the culture–tourism industry, in this study, an artificial intelligence model for social benefit evaluation is constructed based on backpropagation neural network and fuzzy comprehensive analysis, with Yiyang Town taken as an example. The criterion layer in the model includes three indexes, and the index layer (...) contains 11 indexes. The weight values of cultural inheritance and protection, ecological environment improvement, and commercial economy development to the social benefit of the town are 0.522, 0.570, and 0.424, respectively. For G1, 41.20% is excellent; for G2, 39.5% is excellent; and for G3, 40.5% is good. In general, 30.76% of the total social benefit is excellent, with 37.69% being good, 21.48% being qualified, and 10.07% being unqualified. It is inferred that the total social benefit level of Yiyang Town is good according to the constructed model. Therefore, the culture inheritance and protection, the ecological environment improvement, and the commercial economy development are the key evaluation factors of social benefit. (shrink)

En tant qu’idéologie, le communisme promeut l’égalité entre femmes et hommes. Cependant celles-ci sont régulièrement un objet de méfiance de la part des cadres des partis communistes parce qu’elles sont considérées comme plus proches des traditions religieuses et difficiles à intégrer dans les rangs des partis. Elles ne représentent jamais la moitié des effectifs de ceux-ci. En Europe de l’Est et à la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, la création des Démocraties Populaires permet aux partis...

Over the past century, animal agriculture in the United States has transformed from a system of small, family farms to a largely industrialized model—often known as ‘industrial farm animal production’ (IFAP). This model has successfully produced a large supply of cheap meat, eggs and dairy products, but at significant costs to animal welfare, the environment, the risk of zoonotic disease, the economic and social health of rural communities, and overall food abundance. Over the past 40 years, numerous critiques of IFAP (...) have been published, for both academic and non-academic audiences, mostly focusing on our obligations to animals. Here we offer a comprehensive critique of IFAP, focusing not only on our obligations to animals, but also important environmental, social, economic, and public health concerns. Our cumulative argument proceeds in five steps: (1) we briefly review the structure and key characteristics of IFAP; (2) we review the adverse effects of IFAP; (3) we review the historical development and positive rationale for IFAP; (4) we summarize previous moral critiques of IFAP, as well as defenses of it; and (5) we offer a moral critique of IFAP based on the common morality, and in particular on a principle of nonmaleficence, which we take to be the least controversial argument. (shrink)

Eschewing a Marxist interpretation of the French Revolution, Jeff Horn’s work is nonetheless interesting in stressing the widespread prevalence of machine-breaking by workers in France as compared to England during industrialisation. Likewise notable is Horn’s argument that the resultant state-intervention forced France onto a path of industrialisation which differed from England’s and which has been underestimated. Breaking with the revisionist consensus, Horn further demonstrates that the effect of the Revolution was positive for French economic development. Refreshing in its stress on (...) working-class militancy, Horn’s work nonetheless exaggerates the influence of machine-breaking on French economic change as compared to other forms of working-class struggle, the slow pace of primitive accumulation and the resistance to industrialisation by small-scale urban producers. (shrink)

Industry reputation crises trigger producers and consumers to switch to certification as a signal of quality, especially in a weak institutional environment. In this paper, we posit that firm certification as a signaling mechanism involves the co-evolution of firms and consumers. We investigate the impact of industry reputation crises on firm certification as a response strategy. Feedback between producers and consumers causes producers to seek more certifications over time to differentiate themselves from competitors. However, the proliferation of certifications may dilute (...) their credibility and reduce the effectiveness of the signal. Competition from imports that command higher trust from consumers exacerbates the problem in developing countries. We conduct empirical tests using firms in China’s dairy industry after an industry reputation crisis. The findings support our hypotheses. This study provides insights on the certification mechanisms through which producers and consumers interact and the effect of institutional environments on this interaction. It also offers implications for managers on how to better respond to industry crises and for policymakers on how to manage the certification market. (shrink)

This paper investigates the moderating role of industry regulation on the effectiveness of audit committees in restricting earnings management. Using comprehensive panel data of S&P 1500 firms between 2003 and 2007, we find that the proportion of CEO directors on an audit committee is positively associated with earnings management in unregulated industries, while this association is significantly weaker in regulated industries. Further, the proportion of financial experts on an audit committee is negatively associated with earnings management. Our results also indicate (...) that the average board tenure of audit committee members is negatively related to earnings management in regulated industries, but positively affects earnings management in unregulated industries. Finally, audit committee members’ average directorship increases earnings management in regulated industries, but reduces earnings management in unregulated industries. Overall, our results suggest that the effectiveness of audit committees in reducing earnings management and improving financial reporting quality is influenced by industry regulation. (shrink)

This chapter brings together important contributions from geographers, historians, sociologists and media theorists, and looks at these through the lens of social philosophy on the nature of resistance and oppression, to articulate and understand both the positive and negative ways in which industrial nostalgia shapes present-day working-class identities. Celebrations of abandoned industrial sites have been criticised by some as inflicting a form of violence on working-class people (High and Lewis 2007), transforming sites of working-class loss into objects of nostalgic appreciation (...) in ways which marginalise those who worked there, and which close the past off from the working-class present (Lasch 1991). More positive views about industrial nostalgia argue that it provides a way to assert working-class pride in hostile environments, serving as a basis for present-day solidarity (Loveday 2014; Gibbs 2021). By examining this existing literature on deindustrialisation through a social philosophical perspective, our aim here is to shed some light on this phenomenon, in which industrial nostalgia can function both as a tool of oppression but also as a form of resistance against oppression. (shrink)

Scholars and practitioners have wondered and debated over the participation of business organizations in the corporate social environment as well as argued over the successes or limitations of such participation. The authors examined six firms' corporate social responsibility activities within the beer industry in an effort to identify and compare these firms' stakeholder relations. The results have implications in our understanding and assessment of corporate social responsibility practices both within and across business industry groups.

Throughout history, families have undergone significant and profound changes.From the pre-industrial era to the present day, family structures have evolved dueto industrialization, technological advancements, and shifting societal values. In thepre-industrial period, families focused on imparting essential skills to children, withwomen primarily managing household affairs and men assuming authoritative roles.However, industrialization brought about numerous changes in family life: familymembers joined the workforce, women gained prominence in public life, and traditionalgender roles shifted. The emergence of capitalism altered economic dynamics, emphasizingindividualism. (...) Technological progress further transformed society, impacting medicine,communication, and daily life. Today, marriage rates have significantly declined,divorce rates have increased, fertility rates are lower, and marriage and childbirth arebeing postponed. This study aims to provide an overview of the characteristics and lifestylesof families before industrialization and to analyze the influence and changes infamilies brought about by the effects of industrialization. (shrink)

The Industrial Ontologies Foundry (IOF) was formed to create a suite of interoperable ontologies. Ontologies that would serve as a foundation for data and information interoperability in all areas of manufacturing. To ensure that each ontology is developed in a structured and mutually coherent manner, the IOF has committed to the tiered architecture of ontology building based on the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) as top level. One of the critical elements of a successful tiered architecture build is the domain mid-level (...) ontologies. However, thus far there has been no mid-level manufacturing ontology that is based on BFO. The IOF has recently released the IOF Core version 1 beta to fill this gap. This paper documents the development process and gives an overview of the current content of the IOF Core. Finally, the paper describes how the IOF Core can be used as the basis for a more domain-specific Supply Chain Ontology. (shrink)

Several important ethical dilemmas emerge when nurses join a public-sector strike. Such industrial action is commonplace in South Africa and was most notably illustrated by a national wage negotiation in 2010. Media coverage of the proceedings suggested unethical behaviour on the part of nurses, and further exploration is merited. Laws, policies and provisional codes are meant to guide nurses’ behaviour during industrial action, while ethical theories can be used to further illuminate the role of nurses in industrial action. There are, (...) however, important aspects to consider before judging whether nurses act unethically when striking. Following Loewy’s suggestion that the nature of the work, the proceeding commitment of the nurse to the patient, the prevailing situation when the strike is planned and the person(s) who stand(s) to benefit from the strike be considered, coupled with a consideration of the South African historical socio-political context, important aspects of the ethics of nurses’ behaviour in industrial action transpire. (shrink)

The new industrial paradigm Industry 4.0, or smart industry, is at the core of contemporary debates. The public debate on Industry 4.0 typically offers two main perspectives: the technological one and the one about industrial policies. On the contrary, the discussion on the social and organizational effects of the new paradigm is still underdeveloped. The article specifically examines this aspect, and analyzes the change that workers are subject to, along with the work organization, smart digital factories. The study originates from (...) an empirical survey conducted by the author together with a multidisciplinary research group between 2014 and 2015 in some of the largest Italian factories.In particular, the article analyzes the links between digital society, digital culture and Industry 4.0, focusing on the issue of people’s participation in the process of change, within a specific case study from the railway sector.Many elements of the Industry 4.0 paradigm are widespread outside the factory, in society; they are not only technological elements but also cultural. One of the key aspects of the analysis is the question of participation and the “person-centered” culture. The subject is addressed critically by presenting both the RE-personalization processes and the new processes of DE personalization caused by digital automation. (shrink)

Multi-stakeholder initiatives are increasingly used as a default mechanism to address human rights challenges in a variety of industries. MSI is a designation that covers a broad range of initiatives from best-practice sharing learning platforms to certification bodies and those targeted at addressing governance gaps. Critics contest the legitimacy of the private governance model offered by MSIs. The objective of this paper is to theoretically develop a typology of MSIs, and to empirically analyze the legitimacy of one specific type of (...) MSI, namely industry-specific MSIs. We argue that industry-specific MSIs that set out to govern corporate behavior have great potential to develop legitimacy. We analyze two industry-specific MSIs—the Fair Labor Association and the Global Network Initiative—to get a better understanding of how these MSIs formed, how they define and enforce standards, and how they seek to ensure accountability. Based on these empirical illustrations, we discuss the value of this specific MSI model and draw implications for the democratic legitimacy of private governance mechanisms. (shrink)

Many people now recognize that the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss are rooted in how and to what extent humans consume goods in the Anthropocene era. Consumerism has driven natural resource exploitation to its peak, and resource depletion is becoming more common. The beauty and personal care industry has an enormous market and substantial profitability, particularly in the high-income category. However, this benefit comes with the risk of being scrutinized, investigated, and criticized by civil society groups, environmental activists, (...) and consumers. More than anyone else, the industry is aware of the risks of negative society appraisals, notably the consequences of consumer-led boycott activities. In this paper, we suggest that, given the current situation, global beauty firms need to play a proactive role in directing resources toward the development of sustainable uses of biodiversity and agriculture methods. This includes advocating for the wider use of environmentally conscious sourcing of raw materials, avoiding excessive and wasteful packaging, and devoting resources to research and innovation in environmentally friendly manufacturing procedures. The proactiveness would allow them to demonstrate their environmental commitment and actively give customers persuasive evidence of their social responsibility through emission reduction and biodiversity protection actions, gradually building an environmental-healing culture in the beauty industry. (shrink)

The current industrial revolution is said to be driven by the digitization that exploits connected information across all aspects of manufacturing. Standards have been recognized as an important enabler. Ontology-based information standard may provide benefits not offered by current information standards. Although there have been ontologies developed in the industrial manufacturing domain, they have been fragmented and inconsistent, and little has received a standard status. With successes in developing coherent ontologies in the biological, biomedical, and financial domains, an effort called (...) Industrial Ontologies Foundry (IOF) has been formed to pursue the same goal for the industrial manufacturing domain. However, developing a coherent ontology covering the entire industrial manufacturing domain has been known to be a mountainous challenge because of the multidisciplinary nature of manufacturing. To manage the scope and expectations, the IOF community kicked-off its effort with a proof-of-concept (POC) project. This paper describes the developments within the project. It also provides a brief update on the IOF organizational set up. (shrink)